I awoke at seven-thirty; I tiptoed into the kids' room to open their window and Z peeked at me impishly. I managed to get her dressed without her squeaking too much and we went down to drop off the garbage and get breakfast. When we returned, the others were up.
After breakfast, we all went to the Rialto market, for the last time before we had to give up the apartment. The kids had their disposable cameras out; I was taking prints for their album and slides as well. We didn't buy any fruits or vegetables, figuring we should finish up what we had, but I did buy a half-kilo of scampi, one of canestrelli (small local scallops -- frozen, but I didn't have any choice, they were out of season) and a kilo and a half of caparozzoli.
I took those back home while the others headed for the Scala Contarini del Bovolo, since the kids now had their grandfather with whom to make the ascent. Coming back, I went through Campo S. Zanipolo, across the bottom of Campo S. Maria Formosa, and down Calle Bande to the southwest, just for a change.
Reaching Calle Fabbri and the touristy section, I took a slight detour to attempt to find a restaurant called Le Carampane, which I knew was on Rio Tera de la Colonne. There were two trattoria-pizzerias on the short street with multilingual menus, but neither had the right name or look. Some workers were sitting in one, and I dared to ask for the other restaurant. They said it was the other side of the Rialto. But it is on Rio Tera de la Colonne, I said. Yes, but there are four streets in Venice with that name, they said.
A quick walk straight south and I emerged from the arcades onto Piazza San Marco, spotting N and the rest immediately, feeding pigeons in the western part of the Piazza. Incredibly, there was almost no lineup for the Basilica, and we took advantage of this. The disadvantage was that, for the first time on the trip, N was stopped for her sleeveless blouse. We had not brought anything like a shawl, but K had a small cloth bag we draped over her shoulders, and the guard smiled and let us in. The kids wanted to see the Pala d'Oro and also go back to the Marciano Museum to see the horses (original and copies), the view of the Piazza, and Paolo Veneziano's cover for the Pala d'Oro.
But first they wanted to hear the story of the mosaics again, so we went through Noah in the atrium, and the life and Passion of Christ on the arches in the main part of the church. This, as before, required kneeling and looking straight up while hundreds of people passed by on their five-minute walk-through, peering at us curiously.
There were few people inside the high altar area where the Pala d'Oro is on display; Lorenzetti gave us many details of the surroundings, including the sacristy door with a Jacopo Sansovino bronze where the figures and heads of the Prophets are portraits of people like Titian, Palladio, and Veronese.
We came back through the nave, noting more details, and then up the steep stairs again to the museum. K agreed with me that the view over the interior of the Basilica was alone worth the price of admission. He put the kids up on a ledge so they could see; then N noticed that, under the Plexiglass on which she sat, you could see clear down to the atrium.
We went outside; the Piazza was even more crowded, both with pigeons and people, than on our previous visit. Then everyone noticed they were hungry; it was almost twelve, and we came down and around to the north of the Basilica (the bells started ringing as this happened, but the clock tower was under restoration and it was nearly impossible to see anything, so we kept going).
Our destination was Al Covo, out past the Pieta church of Vivaldi, but when we reached it, it turned out to be closed. (All my sources said this; I just didn't think to check them.) I had no backup in the area, but suggested we take the vaporetto to Giudecca and eat at Altanella. This was accepted, and once I managed to secure tickets, we waited at the Tana stop for the 52 barrato and off we went.
We reached the restaurant a little before one, and got a nice table out on the patio, built overlooking a canal with a view of the dome of the Salute. We ordered polpetti, sarde in saor, farfalle alla cozze for the kids, and three grilled fish: sogliola, filete di S. Pietro, and coda di rospo (a substitute for the seppiolini, which were off the menu that day). Everything was tasty, and we shared a prudent half-litre of the house Tocai.
The afternoon saved, we decided to take the vaporetto over the canal to the Zattere and Gelateria Nico, another place K had tried to visit only to find it closed. Since it was Z's nap time, she was given the option of taking the boat all the way home, or walking after the briefer ride and gelato (put that way, the choice was obvious). At Nico, they gave us generous servings of gelato, which we ate under a nearby awning, one of the few remaining patches of shade on the Zattere.
Then up, through Campo San Stefano (the first time we were there and did not have Paolin gelati), and along the tourist route towards the Rialto. We were not usually out this late, and it was much more crowded than usual. With difficulty we made it to S. Lio, through we had a bit of a break when A recognized Campo Manin, said, "Contarini-Bovolo's near here," and the kids had their third visit, to take snapshots with their disposable cameras.
To the apartment by quarter to four; Z headed off to nap, and K joined her. N played with A while I caught up on travel notes, delayed by a couple of late nights.
Shortly before Z woke up, I started on the dinner. I had no grill with which to cook the scampi, so I simply boiled them in salted water for two minutes (the same water in which I cooked green beans), then took them out to a platter and used a vegetable broth cube to make broth for risotto. I cooked caparozzoli in the usual way and added the clam broth to this. But in my haste I made a mistake: I forgot to strain out the grit (this happened naturally when I refrigerated the broth before). Thus the risotto, to which half the shelled clams and the canestrelli were added, was slightly gritty and had the occasional bit of shell in it. It still tasted good, though not as wonderful as the first risotto.
With this we had green beans, tomatoes, arugula salad, breadsticks, and a bottle of sparkling extra-dry Prosecco with which K was quite impressed.
The kids clamoured for gelato. Could they make it all the way to Paolin? Of course they could. So off we went, on the alternate route I had taken in the morning, and further west past La Fenice. It was dark when we got there, but the campo still had a few people strolling through and a few at each of the restaurants with outdoor tables. We ate our gelato sitting on the step of the old wellhead and then walked back through the Rialto area, finally peaceful after the day's onslaught.